MILITARISM VERSUS
FEMINISM: WRITINGS ON
WOMEN AND WAR
Catherine Marshall, C. K. Ogden and
Mary Sargant Florence. Edited by
Margaret Kamester and Jo Vellacott.
London: Virago Press, 1987.
Sharon Froese Nielsen
The women's movement today is grappling with a variety of peace-related issues, recognizingthat peace is necessarily
an important concern. One of the feminist
dilemmas has to do with the issue of
whether women are natural peacemakers,
given their ability to give birth and create
life, their role as nurturers. The peace
movement, too, is having to recognize
women's concerns, in the face of evidence that women's vision of peace differs from men's. Moreover, the peace
movement has been given impetus by the
work of such feminist pacifists as Helen
Caldicott and Ursula Franklin.
This book examines the interconnectedness of feminism and militarism and
makes the argunent that the two are inextricably interwoven. The major thrust
of the arguments presented is that "the
more militaristic the society, the lower the
status of women."
Catherine Marshall's "Women and
War" argues that it is imperative to work
actively for peace rather than merely
trying to avoid war. She points out that
people have not insisted that their rulers
"should, positively and constructively,
make peace -make the conditions that
promote mutual trust and co-operation
instead of acquiescing in conditions that
promote mutual suspicion and enmity."
She suggests that women must "face
and visualize the full horrors of war, acVOLUME 9, NUMBER l
cepting our share of responsibility as
those who might have helped, had we
cared enough." She cautions people to
examine war honestly and to refuse "to be
blinded by [the] glamour" of battle. Her
major point is that we are all responsible
for war and peace and that it is imperative
for women to work actively for peace.
In "The Future of Women in Politics,"
Marshall takes her argument further,
examining militarism and the role of
women in changing the political climate.
She defines the militarist as "one who
believes in the supremacy of force, who
justifies the use of power to compel submission to the desires of its possessor,
without any further sanction than his own
conviction that his desires be reasonable."
Militarism, then, involves "the desire to
dominate rather than to co-operate, to
vanquish and humiliate the enemy rather
than to convert him into a friend." She
argues that women have a vital role to play
in setting up new attitudes and politics
based on cooperation instead of conflict.
Women's lack of experience in the political arena is even seen as a possible advantage as our experience in the home is more
likely to foster the values necessary for
peace: men's attitudes and values are
based on their experiences of providing
for the family, while women's are based
on giving and nurturing. Women recognize that "life means inevitably growth
and change" and women would thus seem
to be the more flexible in the political
arena. Women's particular experience
would make us well-suited to political life
that involves working actively to set up
the conditions necessary for peace.
Ogden and Florence's article, "Militarism versus Feminism,"makes aconvincing and broad-ranging argument that
"Militarism has been the curse of women"
and that militarism "must alwaysproduce
an androcentric society, a society where
the moral and social position of women is
that of an essentially servile and subordinate section of the community." Drawing
on anthropological and sociological
work, they go on to show that across time
and culture, those societieswhere women
fared worst were militaristic in nature.
They discuss the ways in which the concept of militarism has corrupted or perverted every social institution: government ("the state is still constituted primarily as if for war"); industry ("men trained
in the ethics of imperialism will apply that
ethic to the advancement of their individual interests in the business world");
religion ("in spite of all that Christianity
has done to soften the heart of the world it
is doubtful whether any body of ethical
teaching has so often been adapted to
meet the requirements of militarists" and
"militarism is quite capable of using the
purest religious motives deliberately for
its own purposes"); education ("the
whole organization of our educational
system is influenced by the obsessions of
military administration" and, as a consequence, the averageperson "still thinks of
the past in terms of warriors and battles");
sports (which encourage children to think
in terms of killing, victory, competition);
women's status (militarism encourages
woman to "exhaust all her faculties in the
ceaseless production of children that nations might have the warriors needed for
aggression or defence"); and the press
(which is more likely to be financially
successful writing of war than of peace).
Ogden andFlorencealso note that "war
is only one of the evils which can be
grouped under [the] conceptionof militarism. War is but the outward sign of the
military spirit.... Militarism is first and
foremost a system." They call for women
to recognize that militarism is the enemy
that keeps women in subjection;therefore
any hope of attaining equality must be
linked to the eradication of militarism.
The arguments made throughout this
93
book are, on the whole, interesting, convincing, elegant. The most startling thing,
however, is that these arguments were
first published during World War I! The
concepts discussed are extremely relevant today in feminists' search for understanding of peace, militarism, and
women's role in peacemaking. The editors point out that:
...the argument was really about
whether women would prove themselves responsible citizens by accepting
the male-definedsupport rolesin peace
and war, agreeing to bear and nurture
the warriors; or whether they would
insist on taking their supposed predisposition to nurturing and conciliation
into the decision-making sphere, and
WOMEN AND PEACE
Edited by Ruth Roach Pierson. London,
New York, Sydney: Croom Helm, 1987.
Milnor Alexander
The task of reviewing Women and
Peace is a very pleasant one for me.
Having worked in the peace and women's
movement for over 35 years, and having
attended three international women's
conferences, I feel myself to be in a particularly advantageousposition to review
the book. I was very glad to read a book
with such a range of theoretical, historical, and practical perspectives on the
subject. Ruth Roach Pierson of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education is
to be commended for bringing it together.
The first contribution, by Berenice A.
Carroll, raises the very interesting connections, both historical and theoretical,
between feminism and pacifism. Since I
worked as the director of the Women's
International League for Peace and
Freedom's legislative office in Washington, D.C. from 1964 to 1966, I know the
history of the W F very well, and even
had the experience of talking once with
Alice Paul about the WIL's position on
ERA. And I talked several times with
Dorothy Detzer when she was retired and
living in Washington,and then in California. She wrotea fascinatingaccountof her
work for the WILPF in her book,Appointment on the Hill (Henry Holt & Co.,N.Y.,
1948).
94
have the preservation of life become an
important consideration in international relations.
As an historical document, this book is
invaluable: we do tend to think that the
suffragists' movement was focussed
almost exclusively on attaining the right
to vote. Although the views espoused in
this book were not prevalent at the turn of
the century,they do point out thatrangeof
concerns evident in the feminist movement of the time. The introduction is
especiallyuseful for setting the remainder
of the book into its historical context.
Because the book was written in the
early 1900s, the rhetoric of the time, with
its "heavy emphasis on an almost mystical quality of mothering," is evident. This
I was not "aware" enough to be a pacifist during World War I1 (I was in college
at the time), but I think I was always a
feminist, and I began to see the connections to pacifism as I worked for the
University Division of the YWCA and for
the American Friends Service Committee
in the 1950s. But it is true that many
feminists still do not see the necessary
correlation with the pacifist position.
Berenice Carroll makes the case on the
basis of the inextricable connection between patriarchy, dominance, and war,
and also on the premise of inalienable
rights.
Dorothy Thompson, in the second article, presents an overview of women,
peace and history. Her survey is different
than Sandi Cooper's in the fourth article,
inasmuch as Thompson stresses that the
support for war and opposition to it have
been the province of both sexes. Thompson mentions the women warriors
amongst the Celtic tribes during the
Roman period, contrasting them with the
Greenham Common women. In this connection, I would recommend the National
Film Board film, Behind the Veil, to get a
picture of the extent of female activity
throughout history.
Micheline de S k e , in the third article,
makes the case that pacifists are, in a
sense, trapped between war as a logical
consequence of relations of force and an
intolerable servitude. She feels that feminists cannot ignore the dangers posed by
militarism, nor be satisfied with "a mitigated form of pacifism which pretends to
should not, however, deter us from examining the radical ideas presented.
Finally, the warning given in 1914 is
frighteningly prophetic and important to
remember now as we work for peace:
Shells and machine guns were said to
be an insurance for peace before war
broke out, but today they are the munitions of war. The infants of today are
destined to be thefirst and chief munitions of the [next] war.. ..No war in the
past has ever produced such casualty
lists as the present war ... but all this
falls into insignificance with the possibilities presented by the next war.... If
this thing is to go on, the human race as
we know it today will be wiped off the
surface of the planet.
reduce the panoply of weapons which are
lethal in any number." This is what she
calls "tranquilly playing Russian Roulette," with or without nuclear missiles.
Sandi E. Cooper's contribution on
women's participation in European peace
movements, and the struggle to prevent
World War I, shows how important the
role of women has been. It also shows
how women peace activists varied among
themselves as greatly as did men.
Nadine Lubelski-Bemard presents the
case for the participation of women in the
Belgian peace movement (1830-1914).
Ursula Herrmann writes about the Social
Democratic women in Germany and the
struggle for peace before and during
World War I. Judith Wishnia shows the
French connectionbetween feminism and
pacifism. I cannot comment at length on
all these articles, but suffice it to say that
we in the English-speakingworld need to
know more of this history of women in
other-language-worlds.
I was particularly interested in Jo
Vellacott's article on feminist consciousness and the first world war. She
shows the split within the National Union
of Women's Suffrage Societies before
and duringWorld War 1,and asks whether
it would have been different had the
feminist pacifists been able to carry the
majority within the National Union with
them during the war. My additional question is how to change the power system so
that when women do get in (e.g.. Margaret
Thatcher, Golda Meier, Indira Gandhi),
they do not "out-do" the men. As has been
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME